Fourth Letter
Subject: First Set of Questions & Notes on the Interview Project
Dear Professor McGinn,
First of all, I want to sincerely thank you once again for giving me this opportunity. It truly means a great deal to me, and I consider it a rare honor.
As I mentioned before, the interview I am preparing will be structured in ten sections, each containing no fewer than 50 in-depth questions. Attached to this message, you will find the first full set of questions corresponding to the first section. At the end of the same document, I’ve also included tentative titles and thematic outlines for the remaining nine sections I hope to discuss with you in the future.
Of course, these outlines are just preliminary drafts at this point. You are more than welcome to make any changes you wish—add, remove, or reformulate any of the questions. And you are, of course, entirely free to answer only the questions you find meaningful or interesting. In any case, whatever structure or approach you feel is best will be perfectly fine with me. I’m deeply grateful for your time and attention.
I want you to know that I’ve been doing my absolute best to study your entire body of work—books, articles, interviews—with the utmost care, trying not to miss a single detail. I take detailed notes, analyze every paragraph, and try to distill each philosophical gesture and nuance into meaningful questions. It is, without a doubt, worth every effort.
You kindly mentioned in a previous message your interest in talking about sports and music. I would like to say that I hope to go even further. For example, aside from the main intellectual topics, I already find myself wanting to ask about small visual elements in your book cover designs. As I’ve said before, I am very much aware that I am in dialogue with a philosopher. And I don’t take that lightly.
In fact, while reading your writings, I once found myself smiling and thinking:
“Could it be that when God wants a printout on something important, He uses Colin McGinn’s mind as the printer?”
I say this with affection and admiration, and I was compelled to ask it because of this nearly miraculous line of yours:,
“How does neural activity turn the water of the brain into the wine of consciousness?”
The sense of wonder you express toward consciousness mirrors my own sense of wonder toward your thought. And so yes—if I may say so—perhaps you truly are the inspired printer of the divine.
I eagerly await your thoughts and feedback, and thank you once again for everything.
With deep respect,
Uğur Polat
I guess intellectual curiosity and reverence for the life of the mind is still alive and well, just not in the United States.
Exactly–that’s why I posted it. Also, to show that I am regarded a lot more reverently elsewhere than here, because people are sane elsewhere.
Seeing that quotation again caused it to re-enter my consciousness. Then, days later, I had an idea for how, if done right, it could be turned into musical wine. Perhaps hearing music in the background gave me this idea, but I imagined how that quotation (or fragments thereof) might fit well as spoken word background inside an instrumental piece. For example: “Water (long pause) in-to wine” could be sprinkled throughout the first half; “Consciousness (pause) is,” throughout the latter half; perhaps ending with: “a mystery.” Something like “November” by the German band Mythos might blend well with this; or perhaps something musically softer to help the metaphor shine might work better. Separately, that also got me thinking, wouldn’t it be interesting to hear philosophy as spoken word (“spoken philosophy”), since doesn’t the spoken word genre tend to be light and playful, not geared towards provoking deep thought? (I use “spoken word” loosely, having in mind, for example, Robbie Robertson’s “Somewhere Down a Crazy River,” or Bobby McFerrin’s “Simple Pleasures.”) Just some ideas for you. And thanks for sharing another interesting letter!
Nice idea. I have never written a philosophical song.